Inventor of pop-up adverts apologises for creating ‘internet’s original sin’

Programmer Ethan Zuckerman had "good intentions" when he created the
pop-up advert 20 years ago

Being bombarded with pop-up adverts while streaming your favourite TV show is just one of many ‘first world problems’ for web browsers.

Along with your internet connection repeatedly cutting out and Facebook going down for ten minutes, pop-up adverts can be extremely annoying.

Even the man who invented and programmed the vexatious form of online advertising 20 years ago realises how frustrating they can be.

Ethan Zuckerman, the head of the Centre for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has written an essay entitled ‘the internet’s original’ sin, in which he apologies for what he created as an employee at Tripod.com.